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the guest apartment: first aid kit

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2011|

Posted by: David Pitz

Their debut album The Big Black and the Blue would never have you believe Klara and Johanna Sderberg are a couple of teenagers, capricious and probably a bit dizzy over the good fortune they've seen come their way over the last year or so. You see, the Swedish sisters can count a host of highly esteemed musicians as fans of their band First Aid Kit. Fleet Foxes and Karin Dreijer Andersson (Fever Ray, The Knife) immediately come to mind...and we're pretty sure our latest segment of The Guest Apartment will make an admirer out of you the moment you dive in to it.

That's because the vocal arrangements that strafe across this performance are so impeccable they sound as if they could only be the product of years of formal training; something classic, and perhaps a bit rigid at times. But our conversations with the sisters reveal a very different ingredient at work here. Joy. It's ripened over time and come of age along with the girls...especially of late, given the kinds of opportunities that are now coming their way. This is folkal music (they'll explain) that brings with it an undeniable amount of magic, and it's one of the reasons we feel very lucky to have snagged some time with a group of musicians we know we'll be hearing from for a very long time to come.